In U.S. Pat. No. 3,846,619, issued to Lawrence W. Wightman et al on Nov. 5, 1974, and assigned to the assignee of the instant application, there is disclosed on open coil electric heater along the lines of that herein disclosed. The ceramic coil supports in said patent have ends configured to receive and hold metal clips and the latter are formed to receive and hold a part of a convolution of the coiled resistance wire. It has been found that the Wightman structure is relatively expensive to manufacture since the metal clips are of intricate design and therefore require expensive blanking and forming dies. In addition to representing an additional part, the metal clips required labor in their assembly with the ceramic support. Further, since the clips were of metal, care had to be exercised in their composition in order to prevent electrical shorting between reaches of the resistor coil. Also, as described in the Wightman patent, adjoining flanges formed on the metal clip had to be forced apart to enable the wire turn to enter a receiving channel, and this provided complicated assembly procedure.
While retaining some of the advantages of the Wightman assembly, the construction herein disclosed greatly reduces the cost of the assembly by molding ceramic coil supports to provide an end with a cross slot to pass and receive a part of a convolution of the heating coil, opposite faces of the coil support end having hook-like projections adapted to engage the captured coil convolution and hold it in assembled relation.